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Suddenly I’m two feet tall. “No, ma’am.”

She makes a displeased sound. “You get one pass because you were young and dumb,” she tells me, tone stern. “But you’re a grown ass woman now, Callie, and I swear to god, if you hurt my nephews like that again, I will hunt you down and skin you myself. I don’t care what type of gun your daddy has, mine is bigger, I promise you that.”

I don’t doubt it.

“You talk. You tell them when they make you mad or sad. You help them understand you. You do not run away. Do you hear me?”

Swallowing, I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her glare drills into me for a full twenty seconds before her features soften. “Give me a hug,” she says, voice shaky as she opens her arms.

I fall into the embrace, hating that she trembles a little. This is my fault. I hurt so many people with how I left, but I won’t make that same mistake again. “I’m sorry, Lulu.”

Sniffing, she pulls back and cups my face, blue eyes misty. “My goodness, Callie Mae. You’re gorgeous.”

“Lulu,” I complain, glancing away.

“You are, and you should love yourself.” She sighs and steps back, hands falling away. “If my sixty years have taught me anything, it’s that I should have loved myself a hell of a lot more than I did. Time can steal a lot from you, and before you know it, you’ll be looking at pictures of yourself at twenty, longing to get those years back.”

“You’re beautiful, Lulu,” I tell her, reaching for her hand.

She bristles. “Oh, I know that. It’s my knees that are the problem.” She huffs. “I woulda sucked a lot more dick if I’d known.”

“Oh my god, Lulu.” I plug my ears. “I can’t hear this.”

Cackling, she grabs my arm and drags me into the house. I burst out laughing as she tickles my side, calling me a prude, but we both stop short when we catch the guys moving around the kitchen in a well-practiced dance, grabbing everything they need to set the table. Lulu wraps her arms around me in a side hug.

“They missed you more than you know, hun. I missed you too.”

I pat her forearm and rest my head against hers. “I missed you too.”

We watch the guys work, both of us gazing at them with nothing but love and adoration. Lulu’s comes from watching them toddle around and turn into men, and mine comes from my soul. These men mean the world to me, and I’m slowly starting to realize that the only place that makes sense is with them.

“No! That was Brax’s ass, not mine.” Jax jabs his finger in his twin’s direction.

“Jax Williams. Don’t lie,” Lulu says with a laugh.

Brax’s ears are bright pink.

I narrow my eyes. The only reason he’d be blushing is if Jax was right. Brax is the one who mooned our old kindergarten teacher, putting her into early retirement. Everyone always said it was Jax. “Braxton,” I say with a laugh. “You didn’t.”

“He did!” Jax insists. “Everyone blames me, but it was him.”

“Because you had no qualms showing your ass to random strangers.”

“It was a dare,” he grumbles, pointing to his twin again. “His idea.”

“It was a good one,” Brax argues.

Lulu looks at Brax, aghast that the nephew who is the best behaved would do such a thing.

“And it was Brax who set that trash can on fire at my junior prom,” Knox says, laughing when Lulu’s eyes bug out of her head.

My mouth practically unhinges. “Brax! What the hell?” I remember when the alarms started blaring and how the students ran screaming from the building.

He exhales. “Well, you were dancing with Sean.”

“So you decided to burn the building down?”